December 24, 2012

This is interesting, considering what he's saying now, after the Newtown massacre, after reelection:

We’re a nation that believes in the Second Amendment, and I believe in the Second Amendment. We’ve got a long tradition of hunting and sportsmen and people who want to make sure they can protect themselves....

[M]y belief is that, (A), we have to enforce the laws we’ve already got, make sure that we’re keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, those who are mentally ill. We’ve done a much better job in terms of background checks, but we’ve got more to do when it comes to enforcement.

But I also share your belief that weapons that were designed for soldiers in war theaters don’t belong on our streets. And so what I’m trying to do is to get a broader conversation about how do we reduce the violence generally. Part of it is seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced. But part of it is also looking at other sources of the violence. Because frankly, in my home town of Chicago, there’s an awful lot of violence and they’re not using AK-47s. They’re using cheap hand guns.

And so what can we do to intervene, to make sure that young people have opportunity; that our schools are working; that if there’s violence on the streets, that working with faith groups and law enforcement, we can catch it before it gets out of control.

And so what I want is a -- is a comprehensive strategy. Part of it is seeing if we can get automatic weapons that kill folks in amazing numbers out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill. But part of it is also going deeper and seeing if we can get into these communities and making sure we catch violent impulses before they occur.

If reelection gives special weight to Obama's policy preferences, we should hold him to what he said to the voters. Now, there's a little something for everyone in those remarks, as my boldfacing highlights. I know — because I live-blogged — that what jumped out at me was the idea of getting "into these communities and making sure we catch violent impulses before they occur." That seems spookily invasive, like the movie "Minority Report." But after Newtown, I'm drawn to ideas about identifying and stopping those who manifest dangerous mental illness. And yet, if you examine the words from the debate closely, he wasn't talking about finding people with violent impulses and doing something to control them. He was talking about the usual social welfare schemes that promise "opportunity" to "young people." If only they had enough wealth and education, violent impulses would not arise. And so mass murder becomes another reason for the economic policies he already supports anyway.

59 comments:

He's talking about the usual social welfare schemes that promise "opportunity" to "young people." If only they had enough wealth and education, violent impulses would not arise. And so mass murder becomes another reason for the economic policies he already supports anyway.

Anyone who expects Obama to be amenable to "we should hold him to what he said to the votes." is not being realistic. What he says is tactical. He has no intention of actually honoring promises, unless they coincide with his real beliefs. I think most of us know what those are.

When I applied for a security clearance, I had to take the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) test. It has questions on it designed to catch neurosis, psychosis, etc.

We already require parents to get their children vaccinated before they can attend public school. And we already require high school students seeking to go on to college, to take the SAT test.

So why not require students to take the MMPI at some point, say as seniors in junior high school (9th grade)? It might catch some students whose own parents are unaware of what their kids are thinking.

And so what can we do to intervene, to make sure that young people have opportunity; that our schools are working; that if there’s violence on the streets, that working with faith groups and law enforcement, we can catch it before it gets out of control.

This kid was not lacking for funds or opportunity. His father is an executive making more than a mil a year. And his mother just living on alimony alone makes more than most people. He's affluent. Thus, this statement has nothing to do with the situation. I think you'll find that a lot of hte kids who shoot up schools are in fact affluent. So, all Obama can offer are his usual bromides that aren't really about what he professes to be talking about.Figuring out ways to commit this kid might have been a better discussion. Then again, some argue that it was the idea that he was about to be commited that set him off on his killing spree.

I'll take the counter argument that the anti gun nuts take, namely that things tried didn't in fact stop anything therfore shouldn't be tried.His mother was going to commit him. He killed her because of it. Therefore, commiting crazy people is a failure because it didn't solve it in this case.

I'll also argue the counter to Obama's position using the same style argument that people like phx were using visa vis gun control.

And so what can we do to intervene, to make sure that young people have opportunity; that our schools are working; that if there’s violence on the streets, that working with faith groups and law enforcement, we can catch it before it gets out of control.

Dylan Klebold had opportunity, and yet still killed people. Therefore trying to give people opportunity will not prevent shootings, so we shouldn't make sure peoplehave opportunity.

As to schools working. What does that mean? I would think that means having someone who can address a shooter coming onto the premises, but if tat's not what it means, then the schools were working. The schools did exactly what they are supposed to do. Offfer up little kids to get murdered, while waiting for the cops.

The school implemented new security protocols right before this incident (while forgetting the guards - oops!), so that would suggest that the schools are "working". Only it didn't solve the problem. Therefore we shouldn't have schools working to solve the problem because it didn't stop this instance therefore is useless.

Every single policy suggestion could be deconstructed the way the anti gun nuts want to deconstruct the simple proposition that having an armed guard is better than not having an armed guard. So lets have no policies because they may not prevent crime 100%.

Ann, give up. There is no way to hold him accountable for anything he says. Hillary astutely figured that out and said it aloud in one of the primary debates. The only way to hold a wayward politician accountable is to have an honest press and we don't have that. They are lazy, corrput, and they want to send their children Sidwell Friends where Obama sends his children.

About the best that can be said even of Obama's more moderate-sounding pronouncements such as the one you quote is that his misrepresentations are not automatic. They are semi-automatic, which means they happen only one at a time ever time he opens his mouth. For example, his stated attempt to ban "weapons that were designed for soldiers in war theaters ... automatic weapons that kill folks in amazing numbers" reveals either inexcusable or willful ignorance. There are no "automatic weapons" on the streets, including the one used in the Conn. school, only semi-automatics. These are not the "weapons that were designed for soldiers."

Obama has not proven a trustworthy campaigner. I voted for him in 2008, and he turned out very different from the guy who wore his suit during that campaign. He has flip-flopped on guns, on Guantanamo, on taxes, and on many other issues.

He seems untrustworthy. I've worked with people like him. Most people learn to avoid untrustworthy individuals.

It's not that I assume, as you imply, that Obama wants to stomp on my face and confiscate my guns. It's that I have no idea what he really wants to do, because he is untrustworthy. So I have to guess, and my guesses are informed by his politics and the behavior of people with his politics. That leads me to believe that he might want to confiscate our guns and stomp on my face. Why not? How can I know otherwise?

"During the course of the interview, Gov. Cuomo didn’t outline any specific gun control measures, but he did say the following: “Confiscation could be an option. Mandatory sale to the state could be an option. Permitting could be an option — keep your gun but permit it.”

The trick will be to quit making the guns scary looking and sounding like the guns inthe movies which are all automatics. That is really what lefties hate, the aesthetics of the guns, the folding stocks and the lazers and the...the...the...looks of the things. So make automatic weapons but have them designed like Enfields of the first worl war. Oh, and the names!! Tone down the names. Glock should be Kitten. And Sig Sauer Puppy. Lets have a conversation about that.

Hagar, Adam Lanza could very probably have been stopped if his mother had packed up her guns and taken them to her relatives in New Hampshire.

There was no reason for her to suspect he was going to do what he did until he did it.

I do not know where that spooky picture of Adam Lanza they keep showing came from. Do the picture kiosks in malls do things like that?But the other pictures of him show just a skinny, probably a bit high strung, but reasonably normal young man, and that is the way his mother knew him.

He was talking about the usual social welfare schemes that promise "opportunity" to "young people." If only they had enough wealth and education, violent impulses would not arise. And so mass murder becomes another reason for the economic policies he already supports anyway.

The Newton murderer had plenty of opportunity and resources. The left is using the murders to push their unrelated agenda. They should be shamed for politicizing child mass murder.

C'mon folks. We have it in writing that the president even believes his own bullshit (to be fair, we don't know that he actually wrote it). We do know, as well, that 51+ percent of the country believes his bullshit as well.

phx - Andrew Cuomo just said that confiscation is on the table. It's no conspiracy, the left is feeling their POWER right now so much they have no trouble expressing their deepest erotic desires in public. I swear a leftie gets wood thinking about trashing the 2nd amendment. They have orgasms.

I had to take the MMPI for admission to the University of Alabama in 1966. You would have to be an idiot to answer those questions in a way that would show that you are unbalanced. Any sociopath could pass it with flying colors. Crazy people are not stupid. I worked in a mental hospital once.

Whenever I hear someone refer to what Obama said, wanting to hold him to that, I wonder about their grip on reality. What will it take before people who hear Obama describing families earning $250,000 a year as millionaires and billionaires to realize that his words are not to be taken literally. The same thing can be asked about the use of the phrase “fair share” which is either meaningless or misleading in the context of the fact that these people already pay virtually all of the personal taxes. They are emotive signifiers. They can’t be parsed and are not meant to be taken at face value. Most politicians make campaign promises that they may not be able to actually deliver. But Team Obama is particularly adept at making statements that lack the meaning that most of us attribute to words. And they are certainly adept at telling convenient lies such as the one about the causes of the Benghazi attack. Ann, people like you are not simple-minded; why do you image he has any interest in being held to his campaign promises. And as a follow-up, just who is going to hold him to those promises? You? The Washington Press corps? That same press corps that is busy ridiculing LaPierre for making the only recommendation that can actually stop the next mass school shooting? As the Weekly Standard pointed out, David Gregory’s children attend Sidwell Friends, a school that not only has an in-house security staff of 11 people, but thanks to the fact that Obama’s kids go there has a secret service guard. So Gregory’s kids are protected the way the NRA recommends. It’s your kids and mine that are expendable.

LeftBank. Your assumptions are faulty. We would not pay the average police salary for this work which would require shorter hours and which could be performed by retired officers or military at a further savings. Next, local jurisdictions would foot the bill as they do now for every added cafateria worker, janitor, engineer or other school employee working outside the classroom.

But taxing guns, especially cheap ones, is an excellent idea since most crimes are committed with these weapons and the under class commits most violent crime.

The sustainable solution is to renew our commitment to citizen "soldiers". This does not mean everyone should be armed, at all times, but that the criminal should not know the risk and opportunity cost beforehand. We could also engage retiring or retired members of our security forces, but that should be a secondary or concurrent consideration.

We each have an interest to protect life, whether it is our own, the children we care for, or other people who walk by our side in good faith.

That said, as we discuss gun control, we should also discuss "gun" control and self-moderating behavior generally.

The firing of a “gun” begets further violence through scalpels and vacuums. In fact, nearly one million people are murdered every year — in America alone — following the indiscriminate discharge of “guns”.

We need “gun” control, because men and women are either incapable or unwilling to accepting responsibility for their (voluntary) actions.

The civilization paradox asserts that the dissociation of risk engenders dysfunctional behavior, which does, in fact, pose the greatest threat to life and welfare, and is the cause of progressive corruption.

edutcher wails:Some phony folksy's best thing is calling anybody who disagrees with him dumb.

I only say that about people who disagree with me who are, in fact, dumb. Intelligent adversaries (and there are a lot of them, it's a big world) are treated with the appropriate respect. Unintelligent ones, well, you can figure it out. Or maybe you can't and thus...

Just to be clear, a .223 is a .22 caliber rifle cartridge - or rather cartridges, there are several different versions - but they are a long way from being a .22 Long Rifle cartridge, even the weakest of them.

I was the person who suggested offering some proficiency pay to school administers and teachers willing to take training in gun use and safety. (I'm bumping this because I always seem late to any related thread.)

There are practical objections to using a single armed guard in a school. For one thing, anyone willing to sign up to stand guard is probably not the person you want standing guard. Add to that the usual drop off in awareness and attention as the solitary guard stands watch day in, day out, for years, without anything happening - until it does - and you can see the weakness of that security plan. Plus, an active shooter will probably plan to take out the single visible guard and proceed with his mayhem.

I have a better model, one I have experience in from my years as an Air Force pilot. In most of those years, I carried a concealed weapon (along with another crewmember). When it became awkward to do so, I stored the weapon in a secure gun box. Aside from annual qualification, carrying the weapon or having it nearby did not interfere with my primary job in the slightest. Now, consider a school in which an administrator and two or three teachers volunteer for training in gun use and safety. Pay them some proficiency pay and provide secure gun boxes, so they don't have to have it on them all the time. Such a system will eliminate the problems with having a single permanent guard, will not disrupt their work, and will provide two or three chances at stopping an active shooter. Perfect? No. But miles ahead of facing an armed nut with nothing more than a ruler.